The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) recently reported that the police arrested a father and his son for impersonating the latter during the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
This was revealed during JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede’s inspection tour of UTME centres in Kaduna.
Prof. Oloyede expressed overall satisfaction with the conduct of the 2024 examination, although he highlighted a few instances of impersonation. He attributed this malpractice to the prevalence of individuals possessing multiple National Identity Numbers (NIN), thereby undermining the identity verification process.
He said, “Across the country, most of the problem we have is impersonation. For instance now, we say we have NIN, we now have cases of people with two NIN and therefore, that has defeated the purpose of identity verification. We are going to take that up with NIMC, that there are people who have two NIN.
“We have a case of a father impersonating his son, writing examination for the son and I wonder, are you not destroying your son’s future? Of course, two of them are now in custody. I can’t understand what the father will now tell his son when they are both locked up in the same cell. This definitely happened not in Kaduna, but I don’t want to disclose the state.
“So, it is largely a case of impersonation, but we are ahead of them; we are just picking them up like chickens now, because the facilities are there for us to see what they are doing and to pick them up. And even those that we have left for research purposes, they will see what will happen after the exams.”
Addressing the media after inspecting the Kaduna State University (KASU) CBT Centre, Prof. Oloyede emphasised the futility of cheating, given JAMB’s enhanced technological measures to combat examination malpractices. He recounted a distressing case where a father, in a misguided attempt to aid his son, resorted to impersonation, jeopardizing the young man’s future in the process. Both perpetrators now find themselves in police custody, facing the consequences of their actions.
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The Registrar underscored the importance of maintaining the integrity of the examination, stating that cheating would not go unpunished, thanks to JAMB’s vigilance and advanced technology. He also addressed the issue of candidates missing the exam due to their own negligence, firmly stating that JAMB could not accommodate such cases at the expense of national resources.
Furthermore, Prof. Oloyede clarified that the UTME is not school-based, absolving JAMB of responsibility for candidates who fail to meet examination requirements due to logistical challenges or school-related issues.
Regarding the need for a mega CBT Centre in Lagos, the Registrar stressed the significance of support from highly populated states like Lagos to establish such facilities. He highlighted the success of the mega CBT Centre in Kaduna, which accommodates a significant number of candidates daily, and expressed hope for similar cooperation from Lagos authorities to address examination challenges effectively.
In essence, Prof. Oloyede’s remarks underscored JAMB’s commitment to upholding the integrity of examinations and its resolve to address malpractices through technology and collaboration with relevant authorities.
He said, “We require this type of centre in Lagos too, but we have put enough pressure on the authorities in Lagos, but they have not given us the desired response. You can see the relief this centre that, Kaduna State Government provided land for, is giving us.
The Kaduna government provided us the land and we expended from the public fund more than N1.4 billion to build those four centres and you can see, they are sitting 1,100 candidates at a time, which means, in two days, you would have done the exam for 8,000 candidates. But I believe the authorities in Lagos will respond to our call and provide suitable land. We will build it.”
